


Two Weeks

by shibboleth



Category: Iron Man (Movieverse)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 17:46:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shibboleth/pseuds/shibboleth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>i can see it you've turned to stone / still clearly i can still hear you say<br/>don't leave don't give up on me / two weeks you ran away</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Weeks

Her mother wanted her to turn in her two weeks about six years ago, the day after what happened in San Francisco. And Chicago. And Miami. And, at the time, Pepper had wanted to reach through the phone and slap her mother through the phone—how could the woman even  _think_  that, after the bombs no one could have predicted, after the fires, after so many couldn’t be saved, after the military had been ineffective and it’d come down to Iron Man and his amazing suit and Tony—

She’d clenched her teeth and rubbed her temples. She’d tersely responded, “Mother, no.” And then, “I can't.”

Pepper doesn’t discuss her work with her parents, she doesn’t discuss her work with anyone. And now, six years later, she wonders how her mother had known then what Pepper was only seeing now.

If Tony’s not on the television there’s only one place he can be. Three people have the passcodes to get into his workshop, these days—Tony himself, Pepper, and Nick Fury. Pepper only found that out three weeks ago, the day she finally decided that this had to stop. She knows what she’ll say, if he asks, because she’s spent entire nights figuring that out instead of sleeping. 

 _Tony, I can’t stand to spend another six years with that man telling both of us that ends justify the means, because we both know that’s not true._

Tony, I don’t want to hear you make up another story about the last time you talked to Rhodey when I know for a fact you haven’t spoken to him in years. Six of them.

Tony, I’m not going to spend the next six years watching you take responsibility for every wrong in the world.

She keys in her code and steps inside the lab; the scent of metal and chemicals she can’t identify hit her almost immediately. She doesn’t ask. Pepper has no idea what Tony’s up to, she never does, anymore, and that’s the one thing that’s gotten her through that—she never, ever asks. She approaches him slowly, her heels clicking and clacking on the tile, and she takes a deep breath, trying to work up the nerve to say his name.

“Can this wait?” Tony says. He’s tracing a seam in the suit with his finger; he doesn’t look up. “Kinda busy right now.”

Pepper surprises herself by almost bursting into tears.

She bites her lip and pulls herself together, nodding curtly even though he’s not looking. “Of course,” she says. 

There’s an envelope in her breast pocket, she’s as aware of it as if it was smoldering there. She’d typed it up that day three weeks ago, when Rhodey called her and almost begged to know what Tony was doing, told her just how far into Fury’s pocket Tony had fallen and what that really meant, asked for reassurance that their old friend wouldn’t get too far in over his head. Pepper couldn’t give that to him.

The letter starts,  _Mr. Stark, I deeply regret to inform you._

The letter ends,  _Love, Pepper._

She sets it on Tony’s desk, carefully, making sure to leave it at the edge of one of the many keyboards scattered across his workspace, in a place he’ll see at some point in the next few days. It’s addressed to Tony in her loopy cursive handwriting, and she’s sure he’ll recognize it. 

She looks up. “Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”

Tony doesn’t respond how he’s supposed to. He glances up and meets her eyes for a split second and the words Pepper’s waiting for don’t come, and he returns to his work.

That’s how Pepper knew she made the right decision.

But she still runs out of his workshop, right then, her hand over her mouth and tears she’s not going to shed burning at her eyes. She takes his steps two at a time, almost twisting her ankle on the last one, and if things were different she would worry about what Tony thinks about that, about her sudden grief and almost hysterical outburst and panicked escape—but things aren’t different, and it doesn’t matter. Tony didn’t see her, anyway.


End file.
